11/21/2025
Meet Roby (grey and white) and Rylee (brown and white). Going on a journey, here, stay with me.
One of our friends called one day and said some cats had been dumped at his job and were in danger of being hurt. Adults and kittens in a trash facility means big trucks and we all know what curiosity means, in that situation.
We didn’t have room, nor the capacity to intake as many as there were so he worked with another org to get them some help. Kittens were going to be placed for adoption and adults were going to be TNR’ed. He called and asked us to take one of the teens who he just had a feeling about and didn’t want him to be placed back into a colony. I’m usually pretty good at saying no when I need to but he caught me on a weak day. Not that we couldn’t squeeze in one more cat…but it isn’t always the best situation for a cat that we know needs to learn some trust. They see 10-15 different people each week and most of the time it’s not the same people days in a row. That makes it kind of hard to build the trust needed for cats to jump the hurdles that lead them to successfully being placed in a home. But he’s a teenager and our will power is pretty strong so, Roby joined us.
This dude was a parkour master the first night I met him. If I even looked in his direction, he was jumping all around his kennel, terrified. We waited a few days and didn’t try to initiate any physical interactions, just talked to him and let him see us interact with the cats around him. But my need to try took over and he was much calmer so I laid in his space and stuck my hand near him. He didn’t freak out so very slowly, got closer and closer. He didn’t even hiss or get mad and seemed to enjoy my soft pets. Now, those of you who know me know that pi**ed off cats are more Kelsey’s jam and not mine but I just had a feeling he was enjoying the love a little bit soooo…. I spent more time than probably necessary in his kennel on each of my shifts, making that little devil love me.
The day he nuzzled back into my hand, I wanted to cry. If you don’t know the feeling of getting something scared and broken to love you, you are missing out.
Back track, a little. Maybe a week after we got Roby, our friend (questioning that label the more he asks about cats….kidding ) called and had another one. We caved. Although, I did tell him I was going to block him. 🤣
Insert Rylee. If Roby was the parkour master, this girl was his teacher. We can touch her, slowly, but she’s taking a little longer to trust us. She will let me
Pick her up and all the pets but she still has a ways to go.
We have moved both to our free roaming cat room. Roby is totally fine with all the loves, being picked up and while his play style could use some work, he is a dream. The fact that he wants to play is worth his horrible aim with those paws.
We are hopeful the overly confident cats in there will help Rylee come along but in the meantime, we are so happy these guys are part of our crew and we get to watch their journey to being comfy, pampered babes.
